The Gatekeeper Trilogy

by Scott Ferrell

  I took the bait. “What bone is that from?”

  He looked away from the ring for the first time. “This? This is from a humerus.”

  “And the lizard men made it?”

  “Oh, no, no, no.” He shook his head and laughed. My head pounded as the barking mirth boomed in the small room. “This is more than a mere trinket. But, we’ll get to that soon enough, won’t we?” He waved a hand at the table. “Why don’t you go ahead and hop up.”

  I didn’t move.

  “Come now, do you really want to be like that? Trust me, things will go a lot easier if you get up on your own. Cooperation goes a long way around here. You’ve shown very little of it, but there’s no time like the present to start, don’t you think?”

  Somehow, I got it in my head to not give this guy what he wanted. If I’m going to go down, I might as well go down swinging. Or something like that, anyways. Not that I could do much swinging, though. I could barely lift my arms, which meant getting on the table would have been a chore. So, my hesitation was one part defiance, one part not knowing how I would manage to get up on the stupid table, and three parts scared out of my mind.

  Either way, Daresh didn’t take too kindly to being kept waiting. He sighed expansively and waved his hand at his two henchmen.

  “Okay!” I burst out, wincing as I stepped away from his men. “Okay.”

  I shuffled to the table and put both hands flat on the cold, metal table top. It came up to my waist and I couldn’t figure out how I was going manage to get on the thing. I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath. It’s not like I could just hop on it. Well, I could but I’d most likely collapse in a ball of pain once there. I took another breath, as deep as I dared, and opened my eyes. Was that a bloodstain? I stared at the dark brown mark on the tabletop, vaguely circular in shape and about a foot wide.

  I knew what the table was for the moment I saw it. I’m not stupid. But, I guess I had been denying it to myself. Daresh hadn’t been kidding when he said he would get what he wanted one way or the other and I’d read enough books to know the purpose of a table like this with its easy to clean surface and chains. I wondered how much blood a person had to lose to make a stain that big. Right then and there, I decided I wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

  I gathered myself, took a breath in and held it. I spun on my heel and bolted for the door. I rushed past Mr. Bloody-eye, who apparently wasn’t expecting it. Mr. Beanstalk was. He stepped in front of the open door, but I was prepared for him. When he drew his hand up like he had previously, I ducked. His arm whizzed past my head as my shoulder connected, digging deep into his stomach. I heard a very satisfying uhh as the air rushed from his lungs.

  The problem I ran into—maybe a little pun intended—was the fact that our collision hurt me more than it did him. We tumbled to the ground and I ended up on my back, gasping. Before I could even think about trying to get to my feet, Mr. Bloody-eye grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me back into the room. Veins stood out in his slightly translucent skin as he reached down, snatched me up, and tossed me onto the table.

  I tried to yank my arm away but he grabbed my wrist and held it still as Mr. Beanstalk approached. I kicked out at him, but he blocked it and grabbed the chains at my right hand. The cuffs snapped securely around my wrist. I tried to resist as much as I could, but they had all four of my limbs restrained in minutes and I was left taking shallow breaths, trying to wait for the pain in my chest to subside a little.

  After a moment of listening to my ragged breathing, Daresh stood and approached the table. He clicked his tongue against his teeth like an adult chiding a child. “Was that really necessary? Look, you’ve made Kall positively livid.” He indicated Mr. Beanstalk.

  I turned my head to look up at the man. He wore the same emotionless mask. At least I had a name for him, though.

  “Nobody ever gets the drop on him like that.” He circled the table, tapping his fingernails on the metal surface. Click, click, click. He paused, a small smile playing at his lips before he shook his head and sighed. “You’re going to open the gate for me, you know that, right?”

  I clenched my jaw and turned away from him.

  “You still don’t think you are, do you?” he asked. “I’m sure we’ll find something to convince you, yeah.” He motioned towards Kall who stepped forward and handed him something. “Take a look in this, if you would.” He held up whatever was in his hand, but I kept my head turned away.

  In a moment, Mr. Bloody-eye was at the head of the table. He grabbed my cheeks and jerked my face towards Daresh, his fingers digging painfully into my skin. I did my best to glare at Daresh, but I’m pretty sure the affect was lost due to the fact that my lips were smooshed into a fish face.

  “Look,” he said again.

  My eyes flickered to his hand and then away, not sure what I was going to see. Then I looked again. He held what looked like a mirror, but it didn’t reflect anything. He touched it with his other hand and an image flickered into view, fuzzy and faint. He slid a finger across the surface and the image cleared.

  “Recognize it?”

  I did. It looked like a satellite imagine of Gate City. I was a bit curious, so I looked closer. There was no way he had a satellite over Earth.

  “Ah, you do recognize it. Now watch this.”

  He slid a finger down the thing and the image moved in closer. I couldn’t help but think of a smartphone, but the thing he had looked like nothing more than a flat piece of metal that had a faint purple glow in the image it reflected. He repeated the finger movement and the image moved in even closer. I blinked and then frowned. My neighborhood was unmistakable on the smooth surface.

  “And...” he began, swiping his finger one last time. The image blurred and cleared.

  It took a moment for me to realize what I saw. “Mom?” I whispered.

  The image was of my living room. My mom sat on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. Aunt Stacy sat beside her, texting on her phone.

  Daresh turned the device to look at the image. “Yes, yes. I suppose that is your mother, I do. I was more concerned at just there, above her head.” He pointed at the moving image.

  At first, I couldn’t tell what he was talking about, but movement caught my eye. I looked closer and saw something on the wall just above her head. It was hard to spot because it blended in perfectly with the light blue of the walls. I only saw it when it moved. Its shape reminded me of a large iguana or maybe a Komodo dragon but stuck to the wall like a gecko.

  “What...” I swallowed, trying to get moisture back in my mouth. “What is that?” I demanded.

  “Just a little pet I sent over for just such an occasion,” he replied, a proud grin on his face. “You know, it’s one of those occasions right now, it is.”

  The thing crept closer to Mom.

  “Open the gate and I’ll spare her.” Daresh’s voice took on a hardness I hadn’t heard in it before.

  I clenched my jaw to the point my teeth hurt. I couldn’t think. My mind was a fog of pain and confusion. It had to be a trick. It had to be. They don’t have satellites! He’s playing a trick on me! But what if he wasn’t? What if he meant it? I could do it. I could open the gate. He’d let my mom go, right? He wouldn’t hurt her. Sure, he wouldn’t, he would just kill everybody else in Gate City, and who knows where else? I yanked my face out of Mr. Bloody-eye’s grip and turned away.

  “Really?” Daresh cried incredulously. “You’re perfectly willing to let your mom die, are you?”

  I turned back to stare him directly in the eyes. “She’s better off dead than living in that condition.” I nodded at the image on the device, the image of a bit of drool slipping unnoticed out of the corner of her mouth.

  We stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity before he broke out in his big, booming laugh. He tossed the metal aside, it clattered into a corner. “You called my bluff!” He sounded absolutely delighted. “Who would have thought he was this stubborn? Did you,
Yannick?”

  Confused, I followed Daresh’s gaze to a dark corner. The cloaked figure, the one who had put the jewel on my forehead stood there—unmoving.

  “That...That’s not real?” I stammered, turning back to the man with neatly groomed facial hair.

  “Oh, yes, yes. It is quite real, it is. But, I’m not quite ready to kill the invalid woman just yet.” He smiled at me. “I have other ways of getting my way.” He pulled the bone ring off his finger and held it up for me.

  “That’s going to make me do what you want?” I tried to put as much rhetorical sarcasm as I could into the question, but I don’t think I achieved the affect I wanted. “What you gonna propose?”

  “No, nothing so dramatic, but yes it will get me what I want, actually.” He curled the ring into his fist as he tapped a finger on his chin. “Let’s see.” He looked from my right hand to my left and back. “I suppose any would do, wouldn’t it?”

  He grabbed my right wrist. I clinched my fingers as tight as I could into a protective fist. Kall stepped forward and pinched somewhere on my neck nerves. My hand shot open on their own accord. Daresh slipped the ring onto my right middle finger. He gripped the finger in his fist.

  “This might hurt a little,” he said with a touch of fake remorse. He then twisted the finger.

  I cried out in pain as I heard the bones in my finger snap.

  2

  DREAMS OF ESCAPE

  I pressed my cheek against the stone floor. I didn’t care that it smelled like a skunk had rubbed its business end on carpet made of gym socks. I didn’t care it left a thin film of some unknown greasy substance on my face. All I cared was the cold stone cooled my hot skin. Pain. Betrayal. Embarrassment. Worry. Fear. Anger. Especially anger. They all brought a heat to my face so intense it made me nauseous.

  They also brought tears to my eyes that I let fall unchecked. I don’t know how long they lasted. I lay there until they stopped, but even then, I didn’t push myself up from the ball I had curled into when I was tossed into the dungeon. I knew I should get up and pull myself together. Blubbering and wallowing in self-pity wouldn’t get me anywhere, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the energy. I stayed on the floor and waited for unconsciousness to overtake me. When it finally did, the darkness never lasted long. I’d feel myself drifting away, but like a disembodied soul forcing its way into my body, I’d wake.

  Nothing felt real. Well, besides the pain. That was real enough. It was the only thing that kept me anchored to my body. Every time I tried to let myself slip away, pain would drag me back so I wouldn’t miss any of the misery.

  I had no way of telling how long I lay there in the windowless room. It could have been a few minutes or it could have been an hour or more. When I couldn’t stand the smell of the floor any longer, and I was sure they weren’t standing outside the door listening to me whimper, I pushed myself to my hands and knees. I tried to take in my surroundings, but the only light came from the space between the floor and door. It was little more than a faint illumination drawing a straight line across the floor. All I could see was the rough cut stone and walls. No bed. Not even any straw or something to lie on. I crawled across the cell, ignoring the finger bent at an odd angle as my hands slipping through the unknown slime. I moved to the corner as far from the door as possible. I pulled my aching legs up to my chest and buried my face in my knees.

  ***

  A hand rested on Gaige Porter’s shoulder as light as a breeze rustling his dress shirt. He shuddered, though he didn’t know if it was from the wind or the touch. He ignored them both.

  “I told you to run, Gaige,” a voice breathed. “Why didn’t you run?”

  The voice held so much sympathy he almost rolled over to see who could possibly care that much. He didn’t. He squeezed himself into a tighter ball. “I tried, Mom.” He tried to pull away from the hand, but there was nowhere for him to go. He felt anchored to the cold, hard floor.

  “You tried,” the soft voice said. “But, you failed.”

  Gaige squeezed his eyes tighter.

  “It’s no surprise, really.” The voice grew harder with every word. “That’s what you are, isn’t it?”

  “No,” he whimpered.

  “A failure,” the voice growled. “A stupid, miserable failure.”

  The voice had dropped so low, it vibrated inside his chest. It rattled against his ribs and squeezed on his heart.

  “Look at you, you pathetic wretch. Laying there blubbering like a little child. That’s what you are. A meaningless failure of a child.” Fingers dug into his shoulder.

  “No,” he grunted. He pushed his palms against his ears. “I have meaning.”

  “You. Are. Meaningless!”

  Every word dug into his brain. It squirmed in like a parasite. It chewed through his mind with sharp needle teeth.

  “No,” he sobbed.

  The hand lifted him off the floor like he was nothing more than a ragdoll and slammed him against the wall. Sparks popped in front of his eyes. He refused to open them. Tears squeezed out and slipped down his cheeks.

  “You are pathetic!” the voice screamed in his face.

  The hands pulled him forward and slammed him against the wall again and again.

  ***

  “Gaige.”

  I heard my name from somewhere far away, trying to pull me out of my beautiful darkness. I ignore it. I didn’t want to wake up, didn’t want to be pulled from this death. I’m dead, aren’t I? I was pretty sure I was dead. That’s what being dead is, isn’t it? Feeling nothing. It felt so different from my first brush with death. I was so cold then, but now there was nothing. I liked it that way. I didn’t want to feel anything and the voice calling my name tried to pull me back from my death to make me feel.

  “Gaige?”

  Maybe I’m not dead after all. The pain came back in waves. At first, it was distant, like it was somebody else’s, but I felt it, too. Idly, I wondered if that was how Aoife felt things when she used her empathy. I hoped not because the pain kept coming, intensifying. It would be horrible if that’s how she felt when other’s emotions bullied their way into her.

  “Gaige.”

  I hated my name at that moment. A strong, violent rage filled me at the sound of that name. I wanted to scream, I am not Gaige! There is no Gaige! I wanted to be nameless, just an entity floating in a peaceful death, but the voice wouldn’t let me. My name wouldn’t let me. Pain closed in on me.

  “Gaige, please.”

  Ha! Whoever was trying to interrupt my death wasn’t talking to me. My name’s not Gaige Please. Or is it? What is my name? That sounds about right. But is that it?

  “Please wake up.”

  I recognized the voice. At least, I thought I did. It was a girl’s voice, calling out for that Gaige person from far away.

  “Aoife?” I croaked.

  “No, Gaige. It’s Seanna.”

  With a violent yank, I was pulled completely from my dark death at the sound of that name and my eyes fluttered open. Sure enough, the Ashling leaned over me in the dim cell, her blonde hair spilling around her face.

  My good hand shot out like it had a mind of its own. Fingers wrapped around a neck so skinny they nearly completely encircled it. I wanted to squeeze. I wanted to inflict pain on her. I wanted to break her like the twig she was. But, I couldn’t. Stabbing pain in my chest made it hard to breath. Only moments after grabbing her, I was forced to let go and pull my arm back to my chest. I settled with hissing, “Go away.”

  A flash of hurt sparkled in her pleading eyes. “We don’t have much time. I need to get you out of here.”

  I assumed she was only there to persuade me to open the gate. That’s what she meant. Get me out of the cell and back to that metal table. She wasn’t going to say that, though. She never said what she meant. Lies and deceit, that’s what she was made of, like a comic book villain saying anything that helped her. I closed my eyes and tried to let the darkness take over me again.

&nbs
p; “I’m sorry, Gaige. I had to do it, please understand that. I had no choice,” she pleaded.

  “No choice?” I opened my eyes again. “There’s always a choice.”

  “I’ll explain later, but right now we need to get out of here.”

  “Go away,” I mumbled again. I curled myself tighter into a ball on the dirty floor, my arms in tight and hands folded together against my chest.

  “Don’t be an idiot!” she snapped, anger flaring. “I’m trying to get you out of here.”

  I opened my eyes again. “And I’m supposed to believe you? Why in the world would I ever trust you again?”

  “I know! I don’t know how I could ever gain your trust again, but you have to trust me just this once.” When I didn’t reply, she added, “Please. Even if I’m tricking you, anything is better than laying there waiting to die, isn’t it?”

  She had a point. Kind of. I dropped my head back to the floor. “Even if I trusted you, I can’t move anyways. So, you might as well just go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t move. It hurts too much. My muscles won’t obey.” It was true. Just the act of grabbing her had left me panting each word and the effort drained all the energy I could muster into my muscles.

  “I’m sorry, Gaige.” I could be mistaken, but I thought I heard genuine regret in her voice. “Where did they hurt you?”

  “I think I have a broken rib. Or three.”

  She slid a hand up my shirt and laid it flat on my side, her eyes closed in concentration. “Two, actually,” she informed me. “And some torn cartilage.”

  The spot where she rested her hand grew warm and spread through my chest. I felt a series of pops, accompanied by shots of pain that made me flinch with each one. Then the pain faded, leaving only a lingering dull ache and I took in a breath that turned into a gasp.

  “What is it?” she asked.